As predicted, it was an Election Night squeaker decided by a couple of points, but Supervisor Bill Horn remains the undisputed heavyweight champion of North County politics. The Big Boss, headed into his sixth term, never expects — or pays for — a landslide. Far from the madding crowd of partisan politics, however, roses and raspberries always remain in season.

A rose — the Chariots of Child Fire award — to the Carrillo Elementary Running Club for blazing a track to excellence in and out of the classroom.

While classmates at Carrillo Elementary School were recently cheering for the energizer track rat of their school — the astonishing Kai Sims logged 3,595 miles in his elementary career — the real long-distance hero is the program that was kick-started in 1999 when the San Marcos district school opened its doors and adult volunteers lured children to the quarter-mile track.

Today, more than half of the student body participates in the ritual of gobbling up miles on the dirt as if they were gummy bears.

Years ago, I read somewhere that cross-country runners tend to be better students than any athletes of any other sport, a finding that, if still true, makes perfect intuitive sense.

Long-distance runners are often not the most gifted athletes, gawky sometimes, not exactly the models of Adonises and Amazons, but they embody virtues that reach far into adult life. They suffer in lonely silence, don’t normally receive much adulation or equipment. But they persevere until the finish line. They stride for their personal best. Their lungs and hearts are strong.

Running remains, much like distance swimming, a pure sport that doesn’t invite injury in later life.

If it’s smart, and no sporting goods company is smarter, Nike would sponsor this school that, when it comes to nurturing a culture of fitness, just gets it.

A raspberry — the Mission Creepy award — to the California Coastal Commission for sticking its elitist nose in places where voters never intended when they whelped the environmental watchdog in 1972.

The latest North County example of ideologically driven overreach that doesn’t pass the smell test?

The commission objected to Oceanside anticipating in a sign ordinance that merchants in the coastal corridor along 101 might want to employ digital technology to inform the public of their wares or services. (Not billboards, moving business signs like menus.)

Instead of trusting Oceanside to regulate its own downtown aesthetics according to its community standards, the Coastal Commission rejected all electronic signage in the corridor until the city comes forward with more specific regulations.

The commission’s mission statement reads as follows: “Protect, conserve, restore, and enhance environmental and human-based resources of the California coast and ocean for environmentally sustainable and prudent use by current and future generations.”

Over the last 40 years, this broad mandate has evidently morphed into a bureaucratic conviction that digital signs on theaters or restaurants represent a threat to the “human-based” resources of the coast and ocean, an absurdity of theatrical proportions.